Advice from GMs Requested

[Daern]

Further thoughts: I think the groups may be fine with a less fiddly approach to combat, though that may just be my bias. I enjoy tactics, but I try to restrain myself from offering tactical suggestions to othes(not always successfully, my Will is low)

It makes me think of secondary school teaching, where we try to offer differentiation in the classroom Basically, create lesson plans that allow students to learn in the ways they learn best. At the table top, this might mean allowing some players to be fiddly, but allow others who are less concerned with mechanics to go for it.

Another thought follows my earlier rambling is that too many choices can slow things down. Players tend to have a fuzzier vision of the milieu than DMs (those cool maps help!), which makes it harder to make decisions. The logic of the various options is not often clear, and in the absence of a clear impetus, a player may not be too worried which direction gets them to the next scene. In this case, I think a DM can hand wave a player decision and move on.

It makes me think of Monte Cook's old 3e bit about how all adventure design can be thought of in terms of the dungeon: rooms and doors and corridors. Basically, you don't want too many side doors, or too many corridors leading nowhere. You want to be able to poke around, look in a few closets, check for traps, and then go to the room with the fountain and the crypt!

note: I am a player in robtheman's game

 

[pemerton]

The bent of question 4 had more to do with planning encounters with fewer specifics so they can be quickly adapted to be a skill challenge, tactical combat, or something in between. The thought that spawned this had less to do with the amount of time we have, and more to do with reading the mood of the table and giving them what they want.

How have attempts to "wing it" gone for you?

For most of my campaign so far, I've been using modules (modified to a greater or lesser extent for my own purposes) and so have had maps and stats ready for combat encounters. But more than once I've had the players approach an encounter from a social rather than tactical point of view, and have improvised a skill challenge to resolve it (eg the duergar in Thunderspire Labyrinth's Chamber of Eyes, and the tieflings in Thunderspire Labyrinth's Well of Demons).

Now I'm getting into a series of encounters that are fully designed by me rather than adapted from modules. For some of these, at least, I'm statting them up as both combats and skill challenges - in the sense that I'm making notes of what page of the book monster stats can be found on, and also making note of skill challenge DCs. Depending which way the players approach it, I'm ready to sketch up some battle maps on the fly, or to run a skill challenge with a few prepared notes about NPC history and motivations.

When it comes to the complexity of these skill challenges, my general rule of thumb is to set the complexity at a degree that will yield the same XP as the combat encounter would.

As for mixing combat and skill challenges, I haven't really come up with a good approach yet. I've done something a little bit like what Piratecat desribes in his pigeon example, although only involving one PC - the party fighter had to sneak in to a goblin stronghold to find a safe path for his fellow PCs to make their way in, and I let him use combat powers to deal with guards - a successful check on his close burst encounter power and he'd knocked the guards out, whereas if he'd failed they would have sounded the alarm.

On another occasion, as the party was fleeing a collapsing temple the party wizard wanted to kill an NPC (one of the Thunderspire Labyrinth tieflings) on his way out, by magic missiling him. I had him make a simple Arcana check, and on a success just declared the tiefling dead. There didn't seem any point to get the full combat rules going for that sort of action. (And no one at the table seemed to care that, if the tiefling had got involved in a "proper" combat, he would have had more hit points than a single magic missile can take down in one hit.)

 

[Wednesday Boy]

When you run combats do you only end them when all individuals on one side are dead or unconscious? One of my GMs does this and it seems like it can drag out combats even when the outcome is firmly decided. With some in-character reactions from the enemies you can cut the end off of combats so they don't drag on. If the PCs are healthy, they outnumber their weaker enemies, and the enemies aren't zealots or mindless automatons, the enemies might drop their weapons and surrender or flee for their lives. It saves you time from having to roll out the expected outcome and that time can be used for more roleplay.

 

[Daern]

The game went really well! Robtheman used my skirmish rules and we managed to sneak up a difficult climb, rescue our shield bearer, distract and slay some guards, escape and then poison the entire encampment of orcs. All this took place using gridless abstracted resolution mechanics, including a running distraction battle through a forest (running battles are so rad). We finally lead our army of freed slaves to the chieftain's lair and battled a warlord and shaman using normal tactical rules and we are now about to face a mysterious burning dragon.
Everyone felt like we were able to get through tons of story and make all kinds of cool things happen this session and still get our combat in.. Really, it was more combat because we had a bunch of small mini gridless combats that were finished quickly and then finished with a full scale battle. Tons of fun.
Robtheman will have to fill you in on what is a skill challenge and what wasn't, but from the player side, we applauded at the end of the session. Thanks Robtheman, and thanks Enworld!

 

[Piratecat]

Well done, sir! Sounds awesome. I can't wait to hear more details.

 

[Robtheman]

First off, thanks for the many suggestions from the experienced GMs here at enworld!

I incorporated on the fly battles without a mat, asking the party to describe actions and adjudacating as needed but not too much. They had scouted the area with an invisible companion (brain in a jar reskinned as the animated bust of an old man) so they had a very decent top down map of the orc camp.


Regarding Skill Challenges
There was never an actual 4e skill challenge. Rather I took a simulationist approach to the story telling. If they climbed I would describe the possibility of ledges to break it in to smaller chunks. The players had to use a lead climer to set pittons (Durn) and then climb up. At 20 and 50 feet there were ledges for them to rest at. Total climb, 100 feet.

The climb had some tense moments. The bard fell twice. One with a critical failure. Rolling a critical fumble while climbing can mean certain death. Why? That is so anticlimactic. The players feel screwed. So instead the assassin used an action point (he had 1 saved) and spent a healing surge to negotiate that he shadow stepped out into Durns shadow and in to the shadow of the plummetting bard, grabbing her from mid-air and latching on to the rope with a solid acrobatics check. The bard had a chance to roll athletics to cling to him as he appeared out of her shadow. Success.

They finally made it to the top, with Durn rolling a nat20 on athletics to literally pull all three party members the last 50 feet after the near death of the Bard and failed checks by the heavilly armored warlord. Reminded me of Mr. Stallone in that aweful climbing flick he did. This was basically a simulation of climbing. No tracked skill checks, just a dangerous attempt and it required some dice rolls. It may have felt like too many (10 checks per person) but I wanted it to feel like an risky choice, but rewarded by silent insertion behind the enemy lines. High risk, high reward.

I only tracked two things as skill challenges.

Crafting a Poison
The concoction of the poison by the "morally flexible" female half-elven bard and the dragonborn assassin was a series of skill checks broken in to four phases.
1. They rolled okay (avg dc success) when trying to combine the stock of chemicals and powders the Orc Shaman had in his hut. I counted it as a single success but it would only make the Orcs really sick and effect combat if they had to face all of them. They wanted to kill the Orcs though.
2. The assassin knew of a nasty local herb but did not know what it looked like (avg. dc success). A history check by Durn's paladin of the red knight brought a story to mind involving that herb. His character loves to tell obscure stories. So he told the folk story of the herb as part of the successful roll. Another success, and a critical one. if they had failed the potion would not have gotten any better.
3. They all searched for the herb in the woods. Someone rolled a 19, and despite not being trained, they found some of the stuff. Success.
4. Then the Assassin had to extract and reduce the toxic agent. He rolled well on his Thievery check (25+ at level 4). Success. The potion was put together.
5. Finally, I rolled a percentile to grant a total effectiveness for the poison. This was kept from the party. I tend to roll openly, but this one was pretty critical. A 97%! That was some nasty poison. Super Success but they didn't know it yet.

They could have failed or succeeded at any point, or had a moderate success. I don't think the normal 8 before 3 deal would have worked because they didn't all have something to do and I think forcing everyone to roll each round would have slowed it down and made the process feel more contrived. As it was they each contributed when it made the most sense. I believe the Warlord was the one that rolled the high nature check, his sole contribution to that challenge.

Avoiding Notice
I rolled perception checks every time they did something that could have caught a guards eye. You might call this a skill challenge for the Orcs. They needed three successess before the party slaughtered them. They caught on after the posioned food was distributed and pulled their remaining forces to the top of the rock formations.

Eventually the bard and assassin sneaked past the Orc perimeter line. The bard tripped an alarm wire and bells tinkled (stolen from elves no doubt). The two hid in a pile of refuse the Orcs had in the middle of camp. Lazy, filthy creatures Orcs. This was the 3rd time that game that the assassin saved the bards bacon and highlights one way I was using natural 1s. Here I probably asked them to roll too many times. THey had made the poison, and just had to get it in to the cook pot. The bard had her unseen servant drag the pot across the ground and dump it in. A distracted Orc contigent didn't notice but another 1 at the end meant the poison pot ended in the cook pot. She asked if she could have the Servant take it out. I ruled it could fling it on the refuse pile and the assassin could catch it. That received some eyebrow raises. Later one player said it felt like i was making them roll until they failed. This was not my intention but a learning experience none-the-less. That section took too long.

The super effective poison did it's work in 3 hours time. The orcs at the base camp were all dead as door nails. The posion must have covered the flavor of typically rancid meat because they all took seconds. The party armed the slaves and doused two torches at the edge of the camp to help cover their escape (orc perception check failed to notice this from the top of the rock formations). They readied to free the slaves into the woods. I had to remind them they were in a very dangerous swamp. Survival was unlikely. THey chose to bring the slaves along.

They moved up to the top of the rock formations where the Orcs had their fortified positions. A lot of dead orcs. Silence. More improvised checks by the Assassin to take out two lone guards in a Watch tower . He then peaked in to a large tent and saw the human Big Bad and two head orcs. (half-orc death shaman and scarthane in the book, both elites and level 6 courtesy of Masterplan).

Something triggered the Orcs ambush. The rope bridge was cut behind them. the bard responded by cutting the second bridge. Orc reinforcements were now stuck out of reach, but the PCs and slavese were trapped at the top of a 100 foot rock formation.

Now I reached an ironic dilemma. The game had gone TOO fast. They were missing the second striker in the party (an avenger named Avok.... Because you can't spell Havok without Avok. *wince*). They had 30 minutes left and we'd already covered the murder of almost all the orcs. Two remained and the party was very low on resources. They had maybe one last fight in them before an extended rest. The plan was to have them fight a really nasty solo at the beginning of the next session. So they had to fight the Orcs. It just made sense. Sadly it would mean they would have no chance of surviving the solo, later. (fiery dragon described by durn). Oh well, go with it, right?

We rolled out the battle mat for the first time during the session. The fight was brutal. Durn the tank was knocked out round 1. Check scarthane's block. He hits like a truck and rolled high. It was a close thing, with the two leaders using all their heal powers but not their second winds. The bard got stuck in the Death Mages insect swarm so she spent a "awesome card" which requires a healing surge, to make her "Shout" destroy the swarm. Opposed Arcana checks by her and thh death mage turned out in her favor. The zone was gone and after that they party mopped them up. The final blow was a last minute Targeted for Death by the assassin that slammed the orc into the fire pit.

So now what. They have few surges, no dailies, no potions, no friends... Enter the long dead green dragon the bad guys had been messing with. The spirit of the green dragon is offended by the red flaming young wyrm that has taken up residence. He wants it dead and wants to sleep again. The bard has a psychic covnersation and the dragon who offers to lend some of its strength if they take the large spirit gem that has been imbued with his energy and destroy it in the still surging teleportation portal while the party stands inside it. We left with the party agreeing to do so.

We left it there. They earned a level, and the benefits of an extended rest. I'll still make them save against their Filth Fever when they take an actual rest later on.

Next week? What I deem to be a really difficult Solo dragon. I"ll link the stat block I came up with and request some suggestions, but that is another thread. What could have taken three-four sessions with our old approach was ccomplished in a single one. The party gladly went an extra 30 minutes over to fit in the fight. They were hungry for it! I'd say this was the most enjoyable session in months.

Thanks again all.

 

[Robtheman]

So to sum up the mechanical aspects:

- Gridless combat enabled us to describe highly cinematic fights in a few minutes. it didn't matter much if they hit hard as they were dealing with minions anyhow. The party played to it's strengths. The warlord and paladin used athletics to lead the alerted orcs away from the camp and ambush them. They then tried to hide, despite their lack of skill in that area. They failed and had to take out one final guard with a risky toss of a javelin. Crit! Javelin through the neck and one Orc fed to strange creatures beneath the surface of the swamp. Note this could not have happened if i had neglected to place a section of water next to the Orc. Gridless encounter wins.

Also, only having a basic map of the camp let me hand wave lots of stuff that didn't really matter. Example: an attack would have required multiple rounds to get in to position. If the assassin wanted to shadow step and slay a minion, but was 50 feet away, i was able to suggest that he could toss his luckblade dagger (converted into a ki focus). 10 seconds to deal with it and he was satisfied with that option.

I was surprised that the gridless style allowed me to participate in the combat as a narrator in a more constructive way. I play the monsters hard, but I usually find myself wanting to interfere with the players choices when they are on a battle mat. I just love the tactics too much to let the assassin routinely ignore combat advantage. This style removed the option to interject. I think a lot of delay was coming from that. Ultimately it felt like collaborative story telling was being interjected into combat. It usually feels like a GM vs. The players situation. Gridless combat wins.

One observation about meta-gaming. it is a lot harder to argue about the mechanics or advise other party members on tactics if you can't see the stuff on the table. The chase in the forest was a series of opposed athletics checks. they lost some of the guards then set an ambush. The two guys running away just described their actions and that was it. their rolls were high and they managed to smash the orcs as they charged out of the bushes. Also, the warlord used his powers to grant an additional attack to the paladin, thus implementing tactics that might not have worked out on a battle mat because of where i randomly chose to position the orcs. The result was cinematic and satisfying for the players and it made perfect sense. with a mat i'm sure the two players (who are the most "mechanically minded") would have discussed solid tactical positioning for a few minutes. Instead it was over in exactly the amount of time it took to describe their acts of heroism (and roll well of course).

Another benefit of gridless combat was that it forced all involved to describe more. Actions became more animated. Nobody read the descriptive text on the power card. They just said what they did and how it effected the bad guy. No "I push the orc 1 square granting the paladin an extra attack." Instead it was, "I slash the orc's hamstring and slam the haft of my halbard into his other knee. The paladin is perfectly positioned to take his head off." Awesome visuals abounded.

Interestingly, when we had the tough combat at the end of the session, the party completed their turns faster than ever, but still made solid use of game mechanics and the grid. I wonder now if it was because of how fast we were playing earlier on. Everyone knew what they wanted to do, and they were thinking more creatively than I'd seen in weeks. I also found myself being more flexible. This was partly because I had not thought out the fight before hand. Move into a square with a low table? You kick it over as a free action and the space next to it is now difficult terrain.

I don't know if this style of play will suit everyone. I do believe it allowed me to play to my strengths as a GM. I like to offer vivid descriptions and let the players do amazing things in tough situations. The bad guys are brutal and vicious and pose a very real threat - but as noted, too many hard threats slow down the players and can stymie creative thinking and role playing. Taking out the battle map for some fights helps off set that by making the bad guys exactly as tough or easy as I think works best in that scene.

The mat, or tiles, are great tools, but they define too much some times. 2D devices can only go so far. That also stymies creative thinking and role playing if used too much.

We never really used the "skirmish" rules to full effect, because they were only fighting minions. Any attack would kill them anyhow. I look forward to trying it in the future though. I have a specific fight in mind very soon.

Count me as a convert. I have read a few posts where DMs say they only roll out the mat for special fights. Until now it sounded less exciting to me, and more arbitrary. In practice though it allows the 4e system to become a more organic and exciting platform for role playing.


Orc Camp - Sketched by bard with help from invisible scout NPC.
Image Hoted on Goggle Docs

 

[Abstruse]

The last combat we ran through lasted a few hours, but it included 5 PCs + 1 Henchman vs. :
Kalarel (8th level elite controller)
Balgron the Fat (4th level lurker)
2 corruption corpses
1 dark creeper
8 zombies
1 goblin hexer
1 goblin sharpshooter
5 goblin warriors
1 hobgoblin archer
1 hobgoblin warcaster
3 hobgoblin soldiers
5 skeletons
4 gravehounds

I think I see your problem...you don't need to fix the system, you need to fix your encounters. One thing I've discovered is the single biggest thing you as DM can do to speed up combat without changing the rules is to limit the different types of enemies as much as possible. Each enemy goes off on the same initiative, which means they act pretty much simultaneously. You move all the minions where you want them, then they all attack.

It takes me almost the same amount of time to run 4 monsters as it does to run 1 in the same initiative turn. The only thing that takes more time is the actual dice rolling, which is about 30 seconds to a minute each. And there is tension as the players wait to see what happens to their character or wonders if they're next on the chopping block, so it's not wasted time.

If you limit the different types of creatures to 2-3 different types per encounter, your combat will run MUCH faster. The only time I ever do more than 3 monster types in a single encounter is when one of them is a "boss". You really don't need more than 3. Something melee, something ranged, and a minion. If you pay attention to which monsters you choose, you won't miss all the different types. Pick a zombie that has a grab attack and a ghoul that does extra damage if the target's grabbed or immobilized or a creature that gets bonuses to attacks or a cool effect if it has combat advantage or allies adjacent to the target and a crapload of minions of a compatible type.

 

[LostSoul]

I didn't have a problem with the battle of Winterhaven taking 3 hours to resolve. An entire session's worth of play for a battle of that scale seems right.

The entire session was about 3-1/2 hours and there was some exploration/planning, so I'm not sure the battle was a full 3 hours. It would have gone by quicker had the NPCs not attacked in waves - if the battle was one massive melee I imagine it would have been over in an hour or so (and 3 PCs wouldn't have died).